Working Nights

So, while the country is on lockdown again I’ve found a temporary job working nights to help subsidise my lost earnings. On my first shift last week, the subject of jobs came up amongst general conversation which led to me telling the person I was talking to that I quit music because my tinnitus became too loud. He replied to this by saying that he knew all about tinnitus and how bad it can be (I was surprised as the guy was only 18). I asked him how and he said it’s because his uncle got it really bad after having chemotherapy.

I thought this anecdote was worth adding here because when the subject of tinnitus is brought up in real life, you’d be surprised how common this kind of response is. I’m actually at work now, I’m on my break.

 

When my tinnitus worsened, I was working at a movie theatre. (Maybe my years there helped contribute. Wouldn't be surprised.)

I was venting to my boss about it, and I found out that he's nearly borderline deaf in one ear due to an extreme acoustic trauma. He was setting up a speaker years ago, and someone accidentally turned it on at full blast. Knocked him off the ladder and burst his eardrum. I asked if he heard ringing, and he said "Yeah, it sucked."

I don't know if it went away for him, or if he habituated, but I think it's interesting.

 

That's horrible. Honestly another reason why speakers and other audio devices should be capped at minimally harmful levels. I love music and sound as much as the next person but situations like this just makes me ask why do these things go up that high.

 

Damn home boy.

You are making me look bad Ed... I am looking lazy next to you. Bless you Ed, stay safe and be a bit careful.

Daniel

 

I'm exhausted, in all honesty. I'm burning the candle at both ends, but I keep telling myself it's only for 6 weeks.

 

Glad it's only temporary. Let me know your shipping address and I'll send you my special candle holder for such a situation that I no longer need...

 

A girl who works here, who is 23, was just talking to me about all the concerts she goes to. She said she is a big Slipknot fan. I took the opportunity to warn her about the importance of using earplugs and how I wished someone had given me the message that I was giving to her, and I think she took it on board as she seemed genuinely interested and concerned about what her future health could turn out like. I hope she does take notice - like I think she will - and she will protect her hearing going forward.

I said, “you may be concerned about not looking cool, but fuck all that shit” (pardon my french). I told her that the only thing that will matter in the near future is her sanity and not what some random strangers think.

 

Musicians are letting us down by not warning people about the dangers of loud sounds. I hope one day this changes and more people will know about tinnitus and the severity of it.

 

I can understand your point-of-view on this, but I disagree. From my experience, a musician is far more likely to warn you about the dangers of sound than the general public is. Listen to the Rick Beato video I posted, and the interview with CJ Wildheart, for example. Also, producers are usually very savvy when it comes to dangerous levels of noise, so you’ll likely be kept safe when in a studio environment. What you have to realise is that loud events are driven by demand and controlled by the venues and sound engineers. The musicians are just playing the music and mostly have little to no say in what the front-of-house sound will be like. They control the sound that is on stage so that they can perform properly, and that’s about it.

Unfortunately, the public want events to be loud making this a systemic problem, and a general lack of education regarding the dangers of loud sound from a young age doesn’t help at all.

Theatres are loud, night clubs are loud, weddings are loud, movies are loud, etc etc. It’s what the public want and that’s what pays the bills. You have to break this pattern in order to influence new trends and demands otherwise everything will carry on in exactly the same way. Musicians are just a cog in the machine and are not solely to blame.

 

I know that there are some musicians out there who have talked about tinnitus but they haven’t advocated enough to warn their fans about loud sounds causing tinnitus. Have you ever been to a concert where the musicians tell you to wear earplugs because I can guarantee you 99.99% that won’t be happening. Therefore it is the musicians fault for not talking about these issues.

They need to state these issues publicly through the use of social media if they want change. If they did this then maybe those sound engineers will lower the volume to not hurt people’s hearing. A better way of not damaging people’s ears is that instead of only having a few speakers and turning up the volume really loud, place more speakers around the area and reduce the volume so everyone can hear the music.

 

TL;DR: The answer boils down to needing more education on hearing health yet again.

 

Pearl Jam did this. They handed out free earplugs to everyone, and they’re not the only ones.

Musicians are not the enemy; they are just an easy target. If we are looking to blame something or someone then blame society because that is where the problem lies.

Do theatre actors announce warnings before a West End show begins? Do wedding DJs warn everyone? Do cinemas and nightclubs warn people? Do the foreman on building sites warn their workers appropriately?

There are dangers everywhere. Society is just inherently loud, and unfortunately, people actually want gigs and clubs to be loud which is why the venues/engineers mix it that way. If people aren’t educated in a way that sticks then nothing will change. A lot of musicians do speak out about hearing issues/tinnitus; probably more so than any other industry, but I may be biased. I don’t think that scapegoating musicians solves anything, to be honest. Having been a pro musician myself, and knowing many other top pro musicians - having been a part of that world - I can see this from both sides.

 

I would expect those bands who are in the rock and heavy metal genre to talk about tinnitus and the dangers of loud noise more than others but we need mainstream musicians in the pop, rap, R&b, country etc to talk about dangers of loud sound.

Imagine the likes of Taylor Swift, Drake, Eminem etc talking about tinnitus and dangers of loud sounds. They have such a large following that even mentioning tinnitus and the dangers of loud sounds in an Instagram or Twitter post would allow millions of people to be aware about these issues.

 

It's a musician talking about his tinnitus that got me wearing earplugs and lower my headphone volume and usage (I'd take regular breaks).

It's an unfortunate 100 dB alarm for 2 seconds, a neck injury and extreme anxiety/stress that got me into this mess, lol.

Anyway, I've since found that many people have tinnitus and most don't even care to protect their ears more. Some do and I applaud them. Fortunately they have very mild tinnitus - just one tone they hear in silence and can easily ignore.

Wish I was that lucky, but two weeks of unfortunate mishaps, of which only ONE related to noise, was enough to do me in after a decade of being so careful. (I'm young, so I didn't even use headphones or went to gigs before that).

 

Why specifically pick on rock and metal, though? Most rock concerts average around 100 dBA nowadays which is the same as pop and other genres. Classical and orchestral music can be just as loud or louder.

Lots of rockstars have spoken out about tinnitus and hearing problems many times over. The list of people who have done this is huge, but the public generally don’t care. Some have helped raise money for tinnitus research, like Al Di Meola, Rush, Ozzy, Michael Shipley, etc, which is more than what 99.9% of the tinnitus community do.

I think it’s shortsighted to blame musicians in the grand scheme of things. Do the organisers of firework displays warn people? This type of reasoning can go on and on. It’s a systemic problem that stems from a lack of education.

 

What I don't understand, but it's maybe due to my very anxiety-prone personality is that a lot of people with mild tinnitus take it for granted that their tinnitus is going to stay mild forever. How? Do they just not know that tinnitus is very capable of worsening?

In my offline life nobody I know protects their ear, and almost noone in the local tinnitus community either. If anybody does, it's mainly an earplug for concerts and that's about it.

 

That was actually one of my first thoughts as I got tinnitus. How will this be years from now? The ENT tells you more or less nothing can be done about it, go live your life. So the mild cases do not protect much. When you are debilitated by it and you start reading hours and hours of Tinnitus Talk that's the point where the thought comes up: I might better protect my ears.

 

I'd say make strictly enforced laws with business and/or career crippling fines. A one hundred thousand to a million dollar fine straight to the pockets of a producer/business/nightclub owner/DJ and or performer, and that would stop real fast.

I'm with the more speakers at a lower volume quality of sound > harmful quantities of sound.

 

Yeah, I don't get it either. Sure, with mild tinnitus I would be willing to do more than I am now, but no gigs, loud bars etc for sure. I think us on Tinnitus Talk just have the bad luck to have bad tinnitus and also be severely affected by it mentally (which all makes sense of course).

Basically, mild tinnitus would have me live a normal life, I'd just avoid the loud I would previously have gone to with protection/care.

 

This is a good idea. They would definitely enforce this if they knew they would have to pay a fine if they go over the dB limit.

I also quoted the same thing with your last quote about having more speakers at a lower volume rather than having a few speakers and making it loud as if they only have speakers at the front, those people in the front of the band will damage their ears more easily.

 

The buck would stop with the venues in pretty much all of these instances. There are already fines in force, but they don’t work as they are not enforced/taken seriously enough.

Bigger fines that are actually enforced would more than likely have a bigger impact in protecting the public, I agree. However, I don’t think it would solve the underlying societal problem. I think it would lead to more illegal raves/gatherings where people would seek out loud parties/gigs/environments.

I believe that a better education regarding dangerous levels of noise - at a very young age - could seek to reduce the attraction of having one’s ears blown off. It would probably only benefit future generations as I think the vast majority of the current population are too far gone to take any notice at this point.

 

I agree. I think a combination of both education and high fines would work best. I think speaker and audio device manufacturers need to be included, if the maximum output of manufactured speakers was 80 dB, then it would make things a lot harder to cause injury or violate the law. After strict limits and proper education if someone chooses to blow their ears out then it's entirely their fault, and hopefully after proper treatments (FX-322, OTO-413 etc) they learn from the trauma that tinnitus, hearing loss and hyperacusis are nothing to play around with.

 

Should be finishing tonight, thankfully. I’ve never been so exhausted in my entire life. It got so bad at one point that I slept through a students appointment time. When I woke up and realised, I moved the next student so I could make space for the person I missed, and then went on to sleep through the rescheduled time as well! How embarrassing.

Glad it’s all over, but this pandemic situation only appears to be getting worse and this puts a strain on my main source of income. Let’s hope for better times ahead next year.